Chapter 13

City Hall, the building where the city council met, was built in the 1940s. Though it was evident the interior had been redone a few decades after that, as Brady sat beneath a flickering fluorescent light that refused to fully commit to its job, he had to wonder why Mayor Jenkins, who sat at the head of the oblong table, would rather spend the city’s budget on a parking garage he didn’t see the need for than a million other items--including the refurbishment of the building they were sitting in now.

The rest of the board members seemed complacent with the way things currently were. Four men and one woman, one other woman absent, all of them older than Brady, all of them professionals of one sort or another, though two of the men had retired from their other careers, he could tell they hadn’t been particularly happy to be called in to meet with Mayor Jenkins on a Monday afternoon, but the mayor was so keen on getting things going with hi